Daily Archives: October 8, 2010

Three days later, our three thousand copy print run is completely gone. We have over 2400 copies in (or on their way to) stores and at wholesalers at the moment. Minus whatever we have sold over the last couple of weeks: BookNet Canada says XXX, but our primary market has always existed outside of these places. That may change now with this book. We are, I would say, in pretty good shape. By the end of next week 4000 more copies will be making their way to the warehouse, to fill the more than 2000 additional orders now waiting. We’ve set up dozens of interviews, are in the process of following up on more than hundreds of review copies, setting up additional events.

1) He’s selling a print object. There’s no mention of eBook sales there. So I’d be curious to know what those are before agreeing to his “give it all away” advice. Not everyone wants to sell a print object.

2) Also, he writes non-fiction (allegedly), so finding an audience for fiction writers is a very different matter. There’s no Fark for that, that will link to you.

The first thing to understand is that it is impossible to create work that is fast, good, and cheap—from your perspective. If you do work that is cheap and fast, it is inevitable that it will not be of as high quality if you had more time or budget.

Together, they co-founded Angie’s List, a review service of home-improvement companies designed to take the angst out of hiring contractors. Today, Angie’s list has grown to more than one million members in some 200 cities and serves up reviews in 500 categories, primarily home and healthcare services. In the last two years alone, the 400-employee Indianapolis company raised $81.5 million from investors; it expects revenue—from membership fees and select advertising from highly rated service providers—to reach $60 million this year.

And the kill quote:

We always re-think our decision to [charge for access to reviews], something that’s virtually unheard of today, but we’ve found consumers are willing to pay for good information.

Why didn’t any newspaper think of this? It’s a natural for them. They’re supposed to be in the information business.

Newspapers can also dig for information everyday people — and startups — can’t.

Meanwhile, The New York Times sits on an archive worth at least a billion dollars and doesn’t know how to turn even that into money.

I have no pity for the unimaginative. They are their own worst enemies.